Insiders Are Unloading Shares at These 3 Companies

TD Ameritrade Holding Corp. (NYSE:AMTD) had one of its top executives sell a sizable block of shares last week. Chief Operating Officer and Executive Vice President Marvin W. Adams sold 69,468 shares on Friday at a weighted average price of $36.66, cutting his total stake to 246,102 shares. The shares of the nation’s leading retail brokerage by trade executions are 3% in the green this year, and have fully recovered from the pullback endured throughout August and September. High market volatility generally results in increased client trading volume; however, a prolonged downturn in the U.S economy and the U.S stock markets in particular could lead to reduced trading volume and lower revenues for TD Ameritrade. The company’s long-term growth strategy involves enhancing its market share of total assets in client accounts, but the fast-increasing competition in the electronic brokerage market could hinder the company’s efforts towards that goal. Meanwhile, TD Ameritrade’s stock is trading at a trailing P/E ratio of 24.78, which does not suggest much upside in the upcoming months. Ken Griffin’s Citadel Investment Group is among the largest shareholders of TD Ameritrade Holding Corp. (NYSE:AMTD) within our database, holding 2.28 million shares as of September 30.

Last but not least, we will investigate a sizable insider sale registered at Dycom Industries Inc. (NYSE:DY) earlier this week. Director Thomas G. Baxter offloaded 15,000 shares on Monday at prices ranging between $87.31-to-$87.74 per share. After the recent transaction, the Director holds 19,562 shares. The provider of engineering, construction and installation services to the telecom industry has seen its market capitalization more than double since the beginning of the year, as its shares have advanced by 153%. The company has registered massive earnings growth over the past several quarters, partially driven by mergers and acquisitions activities. In fact, Dycom’s earnings growth ranged between 102% and 152% over the past three quarters, which seems to justify the company’s high valuation at the moment. At the end of November, FBR Capital reiterated its ‘Outperform’ rating on the stock and lifted its price target to $100 from $88, after the company delivered better-than-expected financial figures for the third quarter. Dycom’s third-quarter revenues added up to $659.3 million, compared to $510.4 million reported for the same quarter of last year. Its earnings per share grew by 124% year-over-year to $0.76. In the meantime, 25 smart money investors in our database were invested in the company on September 30 and owned slightly more than 24% of Dycom’s outstanding shares at that time. James Dinan’s York Capital Management held a 2.59 million-share position in Dycom Industries Inc. (NYSE:DY) on that same date.

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